Eric Hosmer '16 Vs. '17

Last year Eric Hosmer seemed like he was going to finally become a premier first baseman. In the first half of the season he put up numbers that reminded us of the promise from his rookie season, and he finally made an All-Star team. This year has started off similarly minus an April that he would rather forget. Is this going to be a career year? Only time will tell, but for now we can at least look at last year's first half versus this year's to see if anything is different.

*3 extra games relative to this season so far

The two first halves are very similar. This season has been a little better, but only one category looks significantly different, strikeouts. Seventeen fewer strikeouts could basically explain the slightly better average and on-base. It you put more balls in play and walk at a similar rate (or slightly better so far) good things are likely to happen.

Going down to batted ball data several other things stand out. Line drive rate is 24.8%, where his previous season high was 23.6% in 2015. The number of balls to pull side is way down to 31.5%, the lowest since 2013 by almost a full 5%. Most of those balls have shifted to opposite field at 33.7% and more than 2% greater than any other season. He could go on one of his long droughts where he grounds a bunch of balls to second and wipe these out, but it at least seems that his approach has been better so far.

Pitch values might explain some of the differences as well. Sliders and curveballs have been thrown to Hosmer more than 27% of the time, and last year he was well below league average on both, but not this year. My guess is that here is where his strikeouts have improved by laying off problem pitches. He is swinging at at fewer pitches out of the zone so far (31.9% versus 33.9% last season) and more at pitches in the zone (73.5%). In fact is in strike zone swing rate is the highest ever by a full 3%.

Again, one of his slumps could ruin all of the good, but at least from a statistical perspective it seems that the improvements are the sort that could lead to sustainable improvement. If you swing at better pitches, lay off problems, and keep from rolling over to pull side (the sign when he is going bad), it seems that he could continue to hit the ball hard more often and replicate his first half down the stretch.